The Policy Process: Politics and Technics

Abstract

Both the public and development professionals identify the formulation, and to various degrees the implementation, of policy as the prime task of government. It is believed that governments should be generating economic growth, providing education, guaranteeing personal safety, expanding job opportunities, and taking many other initiatives which should lead to development. They should be pursuing these objectives through public action, cooperating with NGOs, the private sector and other institutions in civil society. The official goals and activities of Third World governments (or any modern government for that matter) focus on the policy process even if at the operating level some incumbents of political office are more absorbed in strategies to retain power and to secure material gain for themselves and their followers.